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PAGE TWO
Public Opinion Throughout the Union
BRYAN AND HEARST.
When asked Saturday for his opin
ion of Mr. Hearst’s Independence
League, Mr. Bryan said:
‘‘lt looks now as though the re
publican and democratic parlies
would present the two sides of the
coming contest. I judge that the dem
ocratic party will be sufficiently dem
ocratic to make a third party unnec
essary from a democratic standpoint.
Os course, from a socialist stand
point there will be reason enough
for a party of the kind.”
Under the headline “What Chance
Has Real Democracy?” Mr. Hearst's
Sunday American printed a double
column editorial in which it raised
these questions:
What life is there in a democratic
party which does not dare advocate
democracy ?
What hope or honor is there in a
party led by a band of political
Molly Maguires, hired by ruffians of
the trusts, always ready to do the
trusts’ dirty work and to destroy
any measure or assassinate any can
didate that corrupt political specu
lators have marked with their dis
approval ?
The editorial concludes that—
The country demands a new party,
a party of Independence, ore that
will work today for the people as
the democratic party of Jefferson
worked in the past.
• • •
That independent party offers a
field of legitimate activity to Jef
fersonian democrats and to Lincoln
republicans.
The difference between Mr. Bryan
and Mr. Hearst over the issue of a
third party relate to matters of defi
nition. If Mr. Hearst would refrain
from calling his socialist Indepen
dence League a democratic party he
and Mr. Bryan would be in accord,
for Mr. Bryan generously admits that
“from a socialist standpoint theie
will be reason enough for a party
qf the kind” that Mr. Hearst has or
ganized. There is really no dispute.
Mr. Hearst secedes from the demo
cratic party, and Mr. Bryan says,
“Go in peace.” Nothing could be
more generous or considerate.
Mr. Bryan is an optimist and Mr.
Hearst is a pessimist. The former
believes the democratic organization
can be purged and purified, in which
we think he is right. The latter, who
has done as ’much as any one man to
debauch that organization, is c< n
vinced that it is beyond redemption,
in which we think he is wrong.
Mr. Hearst knows from his own ex
perience that in the wealthiest and
most populous state of the union an
ambitious millionaire can buy a dem
ocratic nomination for governor;
that he can bargain freely with a
boss who, he said, should be in Sing
Sing wearing stripes; that in part
nership with this boss he can appoint
judges to the bench; that the organ
ization which sells him his stolen
nomination will not insist that he
support the democratic platform and
will applaud his expenditure < f
000 to buy the election. Knowing all
this and appreciating the success of
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
his own efforts to debauch democratic
organizations, not only in New York
but in Illinois and California, it is
not strange that Mr. Hearst should
be convinced that there is no hope
of democratic reform.
But there are two sides to the cloth.
The democratic party is sloughing off
Mr. Hearst. It will slough off its
Murphys, McCarrens, Connerses, Tag*
garts, Guffys, Ryans and the like.
In the words of John Temple Graves,
it “must be born again,” and it will
be born again. There is important
work for it to do. Its history, its
traditions, its activities, are part of
the heritage of personal liberty and
self-government, and the sooner it is
rid of both its plutocratic and social
istic element the sooner it can resume
its real mission.Nevv York World.
SOME POLITICAL HISTORY.
Leslie’s Weekly expresses the gen
eral impression political history hrs
made on the public mind in the fol
lowing, but we cannot quite agree:
“No persistent presi dein cy-see kier
ever reached the presidency except
Van Buren and Buchanan. Van Bu
ren won through the idiocy of his
democratic rivals and because of the
stupidity of his and Jackson’s dem
ocratic and whig enemies. Buchanan
got the presidency because, being on
duty abroad (he was minister to Eng
land) when Douglas, in 1854 flung
his dynamite bomb of a Kansas-Ne
braska bill into congress, he saved
himself from the necessity of taking
sides on that disruptive issue, and
thus was the only availability in 1856-
When the presidency came to him in
that year he had ceased to expect it
or to aspire to it, and lie was too old
to enjoy it or to rise adequately to
its duties and responsibilities.”
Jefferson and Jackson were both
“persistent presidency-seekers,” and
each was thrice a candidate and twice
elected. With' the single exception of
Taylor, no man since George Wash
ington has reached the presidency by
election who was not an ardent seek
er of the distinction, and many of
them persistent in the pursuit. John
Q. Adams sought it as pertinaciously
as either Van Buren or Buchanan,
and so did William McKinley. When
he was a lad at school, Theodore
Roosevelt dreamed of the presidency.
Douglas did not fling the dynamite
into the Kansas-Nebraska bill, if by
dynamite Leslie’s Weekly means the
repeal of the Missouri restriction of
1820, erroneously called the “Mis
souri Compromise.” Archibald Dixom
a whig, the successor of Henry Clay
in the United States senate, offered
an amendment to Mr. Douglas’ plan,
and, after consultation with the pres
ident and cabinet, Douglas accepted
the amendment that provided for the
repeal of the “compromise,” which
was a polite term politics invented
for the surrender the south made of
its rights in. 1820 in consideration of
the admission of Missouri as a slave
state.
The speech Mr. Douglas made clos
ing the debate on the Kansps-Nebrfis*
ka bill has never been surpassed in
the United States senate in a politi-
cal discussion. He was the champion
the great American doctrine of
“home rule.” His enemies, too igno
rant to perceive or too perverse to
admit the great truth Douglas pro
claimed, sought to discredit it with
the sneer, • ‘squatter sovereignly,” as
if home rule ever was or ever can be
anything else but “squatter sover
eignty.”
Patrick Henry was. the greatest
advocate of “squatter sovereignty”
the world ever saw, and there is
plenty of room in this country for
two or three Patrick Henrys right
now.—Washington Post.
We consider the coming conference
of reformers the most important meet
ing of third party men since the mem"
orable 1896 populist national con
vention. A new element is knocking
at the door for admission into the
party of Peter Goopelri. Tens of
thousands of voters in the great
cities, who have been organized for
political action in their local
elections, independent of the old
parties, are seeking to become a
part of the national reform move
ment. Possibly, from their stand
point, they are seeking to have the
populists bi come a part of their move
ment. If they look at it that way,
it makes no difference. The national
reform party that ran Peter Cooper
for president thirty years ago is the
reform party of today and will con
tinue to be the reform party until the
nation is redeemed or the spirit of
liberty is crushed from the heaits
of the people.—Missouri World.
CAKE OF SOAP—VALUE 5 CENTS.
An aged scrubwoman has been sent
to the Tombs for taking a small
cake of soap valued at five cents from
the United States Express Company,
of which Thomas C. Plat is the head.
Upon complaint of this corporation
she was arrested. When the magis
trate, who learned that the woman had
taken the soap to wash her hands
after completing her morning’s work
of scrubbing floors, was inclined to
dismiss the ease, the announcement
was made that the Platt corporation
was determined to prosecute the case
against the prisoner and she was re
manded to the Tombs.
It is wrong to take by theft even
the smallest article, and the fact that
the express trust has multiplied its
fortune by bribery and graft would
not justify a scrubwoman in abstract
ing a piece of soap.
Nevertheless, with Senator Platt
out of the penirentiary, etcinal jus
tice seems to be traversed in this
woman’s arrest.
Some time ago theie was national
exposure of a conspiracy engineered
by Senator Flatt’s company aid al
lied interests which had been netting
an illicit revenue of five hundred
thousand dollars a year from the
United Stages treasury. Through col
lusion and fraud extortionate rates
had been secured for years for trans
porting coin, currency and bullion be*
tween banks and the government of
fices in Washington.
That annual theft of five hundred
thousand dollars of public money
would enable the States Ex
press Company to purchase ten mil
lion cakes of soap at the value set
forth in the complaint which has sent
one of Senator Platt’s humble em
ployes to the Tombs.
In the case against this woman the
United States Express representa
tives set forth that they desired to
make an example of her for the pur
pose of instilling the principles of
integrity among the many employes
of the company.
Inasmuch as the company exists
solely by reason of a corrupt ar
rangement with the United States
government, and inasmuch as its
whole operation is essentially of the
nature of graft, the work of instill
ing principles of honesty would seem
to be undertaken on adequate
grounds.
But we suggest that to be quite
fair the cells adjoining that occupied
tonight by the dishonest scrubwo
man should be filled by some of the
men that have engineered express
company frauds. That would tend
to instill principles of integrity and
also to raise the spirits of the com
munity.—The New York American.
THE “STAND PAT” RAILS.
The vice president of the South
ern Pacific railroad notified Mr. Har
riman that 449 rails on the line had
broken in the month of February,
and that of these 179 had been in
service less than six months. The
same defect in rails furnished by the
United States Steel Corporation has
caused many smash-ups and other ac
cidents involving the killing of scores
of passengers on other lines.
As a result of this experience the
American Railway Association ap
pointed a committee of nine of its
members to demand of the steel com
pany a better and more reliable rail.
Mr. Harriman gave an order to
practically the one independent plant
in the country, for 150,000 tons of
rails, saying: “The lives of the pas
sengers on the Southern Pacific are
more valuable than the necessity for
dividends on Steel stocks.”
Various causes are assigned for the
inferior rails now supplied by the
trusts, but the bottom reason is that
which has lowered the quality and
raised the price of nearly all goods
manufactured by a monopoly—name
ly, greed encouraged snd protected
by a prohibitory tariff. The exe
cutive head of one of the greatest
trunk lines in the country, in reply
to a question by a reporter of the
New York American, as to the rem
edy said:
Revise the tariff. As long as the
Steel Corporation is able to control
the market, deliver the rails that it
thinks good enough, and the railroad
is helpless to go elsewhere, the trou
ble cannot be eradicated unless the
railroads, acting as a unit, demand a
change and refuse to accept rails un
satisfactory, and that is hardly prob
able.
And this is the sort of thing that
the republican party “stands pat”
for! —Boston Herald.